Verbs for your NBPTS writing

 

Perhaps you remember Bloom’s Taxonomy from college.  Six areas of cognition were identified and descriptors given…those descriptors are in the form of verbs.  Listed on the next page is the taxonomy.  Underline the verbs that would be useful in descriptive writing.  Circle the verbs that would be useful in your analytical writing.  Star the verbs that would be useful in your reflective writing.  Add additional verbs to the columns as you think of them.

 

Bloom also provided additional cognitive descriptions for each of his levels:

 

KNOWLEDGE – Involves recognition and recall of facts and the sequence of events

 

COMPREHENSION – Involves interpretations, translations, summaries or paraphrasing of given materials.  The person has the ability to describe a situation in his own words

 

APPLICATION – Involves the use of material in a situation which is different from that situation in which it was originally learned

 

ANALYSIS – Involves separating a complex entity into its parts, drawing comparisons and relationships between the elements (recognize biases, another’s point of view, read between the lines to determine an assumption or hidden meaning)

 

SYNTHESIS – Involves combining elements to form a new original entity…a process of working with pieces, parts, elements, etc., and arranging them in a structure that was not clearly evidenced before.

 

EVALUATION – Involves acts of decision making, judging, or selecting based on a given set of criteria, either subjective or objective.

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy

KNOWLEDGE	COMPREHENSION	APPLICATION	ANALYSIS	SYNTHESIS	EVALUATION
Define	Restate	Translate	Distinguish	Compose	Judge
Memorize	Discuss	Interpret	Analyze	Plan	Appraise
Repeat	Describe	Apply	Differentiate	Propose	Evaluate
Record	Explain	Use	Appraise	Design	Rate
List	Express	Demonstrate	Calculate	Formulate	Compare
Recall	Identify	Dramatize	Experiment	Arrange	Value
Name	Locate	Practice	Test/compare	Assemble	Revise
Relate	Report	Illustrate	Contrast	Collect	Score
Underline	Review	Operate	Criticize	Construct	Select
Recognize	Tell	Show	Diagram	Create	Choose
		Sketch	Inspect	Set up	Assess
			Debate	Organize	Estimate
			Inventory	Manage	Measure
			Question	Prepare
			Relate
			Solve
			Examine